


Bored at the QuickieStop

by PoisonKisses



Series: Siren Citizens of Gotham [5]
Category: Gotham City Sirens (Comics), Poison Ivy (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2019-01-09 20:59:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12284316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoisonKisses/pseuds/PoisonKisses
Summary: Cassidy has an unexpected adventure.





	Bored at the QuickieStop

Cassidy was bored. Ridiculously bored. Like, so bored she wanted to go out to the pumps, flip one on, and drink gasoline. It might be a painful way to go, horrible in fact, but it wouldn’t be boring.

She sighed and glanced at the clock on her register. Just shy of one in the morning, and her shift didn’t end til two. Another hour. She shifted in her booth, glancing dubiously at the wall of cigarettes and considering starting her inventory early. Every night, after she closed, she was responsible for counting them. It was the one thing she sold a lot of. This close to the narrows, all the vices you could name were in high demand. Tobacco, booze, gambling—lotto tickets and scratch off cards—were their top sellers. 

She really didn’t sell a lot of gas, there just weren’t that many cars, and the ones that did pull in were almost always gang cars. 

This little QuickieStop had the misfortune of sitting right between the 49th Street Dragons territory, a Korean street gang, and that claimed by the Chosen, a near cult of African American boys who followed some guy calling himself the Prophet. Street gangs she understood, but the Chosen didn’t sit well with her.

Cassidy was twenty and the little QuickieStop job helped put food in her baby’s mouth and maybe, if she kept saving and living with her mom (who’d been working as Housekeeping at Wayne Enterprises for fifteen years—a good job for a black Narrows woman,) she was hoping to start Gotham U in the fall. She was a reader, she loved books, but she’d had to drop out of High School when Derek was born, had to get a GED, but GU would accept a GED in lieu of a High School Diploma if you had a good letter of recommendation—she’d worry about that wrinkle later. For now, QuickieStop late shift was the way to go.

It didn’t make it any less boring.

She looked up when headlights flashed, and groaned under her breath. Speak of the Devil and he might appear—a car full of Dragons pulled up to one of the pumps.

They were all young men of Korean descent, as a rule lean and wiry, wearing tee shirts, jeans, and bandanas. Dragons could be trouble, they’d caused it for her before, but she chose to stand up at the register rather than try dialing the cops (who, if they showed at all, wouldn’t be there for an hour.) The door to her booth was locked, and the glass was bullet proof, but they could still trash the outside racks of candy, the drink refrigerators, or just spray gas on the ground if they wanted. 

They were laughing, speaking in English. She knew a few of them were bilingual but many of these guys were fourth and fifth generation immigrants. They were as American as she was. They were full of themselves, full of machismo, laughing and bantering, calling each other ‘fag’ or ‘pussy.’ A couple of them glanced her way and one, a guy with long hair and wearing a Dragonball Z tee shirt, took a moment to leer at her.

She groaned inwardly again, silently praying that’s all it ended up being.

After several minutes, one by one they trickled up to the register with armloads of junk food and wanting cigarettes. She didn’t bother carding them, that might set them off and she just wanted them away.

A second pair of headlights flashed in her eyes just as leering guy stepped up.

“Hey, gimme a pack of Newports.” He dropped a couple of Red Bulls, some beef jerky, and a candy bar in front of her. 

“Yes sir,” she noncommittally replied and turned to get them.

“Oh, write yo number down on that receipt, too.”

Cassidy paused, trying to decide how to handle it. Inwardly she was cursing.

“Sorry, sir, I have a boyfriend.”

It was a lie of course. Cassidy hadn’t even dated since Derek’s father disappeared when she told him she was pregnant. She was on her own, and she knew it, just like millions of other girls were. 

“That’s ok, babe. Now you got me…and I think I need me some brown sugar.” He leered at her some more, biting his lip. Cassidy had to fight the urge to vomit.

She looked around, desperate for some sort of help, and found herself gaping at the other car.

It was a cherry red convertible. Gorgeous and expensive, Cassidy didn’t know the model, not that it really mattered. Two women were getting out. They were laughing, as they did.

The brunette was fairly drunk, her pretty face flushed and her green eyes bright. She was wearing a little black dress and six-inch stiletto kitten heels, makeup dark almost to the point of being gothic—purple lips and eyeshadow—and the lace choker with a little cat head on it only added to the impression. Big silver hoop earrings that matched the bracelets on her wrists—unless that was platinum? She was teetering a little on her heels and giggling as she strutted around the back of the car. She was gorgeous, leggy and slim but with beautifully sculpted arms and shoulders, like she was an athlete or something.

The second woman was tall and pale with thick, dark red, curly hair—the kind of hair you only really see in movies or shampoo commercials. She was laughing at something the brunette must’ve said, and strolled to support her friend when she stumbled. She was wearing a dark green sheath dress cut daringly up the middle and showing off her perfect, bare legs. It was low cut as well, and she had an impressive amount of cleavage on display. There was a Celtic type pattern repeating on the fabric, making her look like a modern witch. She was in tall wedge heels but was so graceful it looked like she was born to wear them.

The Dragons had all frozen, a couple in mid bite, just staring at the glamorous pair. Leering guy turned and forgot about her, so Cassidy was grateful, but also terrified for the two. What kind of idiots would dress like them, drive that car, and stop for gas here?

Leering guy was already heading their way, and the other guys were quickly forming a semi-circle around them. Cassidy hated herself, but she couldn’t let these dumbasses get raped and killed right in front of her. Against her better judgement, she threw the lock open. She didn’t even know what she was going to do, just that she had to do something, so she grabbed the thick college prep text book she’d been sort of half studying as a possible makeshift weapon and charged out..

By the time she made it around, she heard one of the guys talking.

“Hey, you some hot bitches. Ya’ll wanna kick it?”

She saw the redhead turn to the brunette, a smirk on her full lips—and wow, up close she was a full-fledged knockout. She looked like a centerfold or a porn star, the kind of sultry features you just don’t see in real life.

“Are these men some sort of gang?” Her voice was deep. Breathy. She sounded like old films of Marilyn Monroe.

“Oh, yeah, I think they’re 49th Street Dragons. They answer to Sionis.”

“Hey, we don’t answer to no one!” One of them yelled out, but the two women seemed to consider them irrelevant.

“You don’t think they’ll be dumb enough to try something, do you?” the redhead murmured.

Cassidy had to step in. “Hey, guys, cmon, we don’t want no trouble, kay? Rest a’ ya’ll’s stuff is free, just…”

One of them sneered at her. “Shut the fuck up, bitch, or we’ll give you somethin’ to chew on.”

She felt a real stab of fear, started to back away, and leering guy caught her wrist. She didn’t like the look on his face. On the edge of her hearing, she heard the brunette say, “Of course they will, they’re idiots. They make life horrible over in little Korea. Have at em, I’m too drunk to help.”

It happened so quickly Cassidy barely registered it.

One minute it was tense, the next their car was flying through the air, a giant…vine…growing out of the cracked concrete plucked it up like a toy and simply threw it, and then more vines, sprouting from it, were snatching the Dragons off their feet, flinging them away like broken toys. Cassidy heard screams and grunts and the cracks of bones breaking. One of the dragons freed his gun, but it hit the concrete with a metallic clunk when a vine wrapped his arm and snapped it. Leering guy wasn’t touched—he stared in shock as the redhead turned to him. His eyes were comically wide, and he still clutched Cassidy’s arm, forgotten.

The redhead ran her fingers through that gorgeous hair and then flicked them at him, as though she were throwing him something. Cassidy caught the barest whiff of it—a scent that hit him full in the face.

She would have been hard pressed to describe what she smelled. A little like the flowers Mrs. Baker, who lived next door, would grow in the summer when she was a kid, but also a bit like her mom’s chocolate chip cookies, fresh baked, or the baby smell of Derek when they first put him in her arms, or the smell of a great new book when you first opened it.

It was intense, and next to her, leery’s face was slack, eyes wide, staring at the redhead in total adoring worship, madly in love and tripping balls.

“What were you planning to do with her?” the redhead asked, her gaze unwavering and fierce. Cassidy almost piped up with whatever answer she could provide. This weird part of her wanted to do anything she could to make the woman happy.

“I was gonna, uh, fuck her.” The answer was honest, his voice subdued. It sounded almost robotic.

“You mean rape her?” Leery nodded slowly.

“Yeah, if she didn’t say yes.”

“She wasn’t going to say yes. So, you were going to rape her?”

“Yeah, I was going to rape her.”

“Pick up that gun and put it to your temple.”

Cassidy was staring, open-mouthed, when Leery did it without question, the muzzle against his temple.

“Do you wish to die?” the woman said, no hint of warmth in her sexy voice.

“No, please, I don’t want to die.” Leery said, and Cassidy saw a tear run down his cheek.

“But, if I say pull the trigger, you will.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes, Ma’am, I will.”

“Mistress. Say it.”

“Mistress, I will.”

The woman nodded, glanced at Cassidy. “What do you think? Should he die for what he planned to do tonight?”

Cassidy stared at her, finally understanding what was happening and who this was. “I. I don’t. I can’t pass judgement like that. No?”

She turned to Leery. “You get to live, this time. Do not ever threaten or harm a woman again, do you understand?”

Leery nodded slowly. She saw him swallow, a big lump. He was almost trembling.

“Leave, never come back.” Leery turned and bolted.

Cassidy stared at her. “You’re—“

“Just getting some gas and snacks for my drunk friend.” She smiled, and Cassidy felt herself smiling back. “You’re a student?”

Cassidy helped the woman grab snacks and drinks, quietly told her the story of getting pregnant in high school, her boyfriend abandoning her, how much she loved Derek, and when she talked about the baby, the woman got a distant look in her eyes.

“Yes, you have to take care of your children.”

***

_2 months later_

Cassidy sighed as she got to work, beginning her shift at six pm. She parked and trudged up to the booth where Susan, her manager, was checking out people. 

“Hey, Cas, someone dropped that off for you.”

Cassidy saw a manilla envelope addressed simply “Cassidy.”

Opening up, she found a short note.

_Cassidy,  
Please accept this as part of your Gotham University admission packet. Good luck at college, I know you’ll go far._

Enclosed with it was a glowing letter of recommendation from a Dr. Pamela Lilian Isley, and Cassidy couldn’t fight the happy tears.

She was going to college.


End file.
